"Yes, yes. I wish I knew what would be the best, Arabella. My feelings are wound up to this enterprise, and I am altogether in such a frightful state of excitement concerning it, that—that I know not how I should be able to support myself under the delay of the remainder of to-day and the whole of the ensuing night."
"In the night you will have repose, and to-morrow morning, with much more calmness and effect, you will be able to start upon your errand. Believe me, Johanna, I don't counsel this delay with any hope, or wish, or expectation, that it will turn you from your purpose, but simply because I think it will the better ensure its successful termination."
"Successful! What will you call successful, Arabella?"
"Your coming back to me uninjured, Johanna."
"Ah, that speaks your love for me, while I—I love him for whose sake I am about to undergo so much, sufficiently to feel that were I sure he was no more, my own death at the hands of Sweeney Todd would be success."
"Johanna—Johanna, don't speak in such a strain. Have you no thought for me? have you no thought for your poor father, to whom, as you well know, you are the dearest tie that he has in the world? Oh, Johanna, do not be so selfish."
"Selfish?"
"Yes, it is selfish, when you know what others must suffer because they love you, to speak as though it were a thing to be desired that you should die by violence."
"Arabella, can you forgive me? can you make sufficient allowances for this poor distracted heart, to forgive its ravings?"
"I can—I do, Johanna, and in the words of your father, I am ever ready to say 'God bless you!' You will not go till to-morrow?"